We buzzed ourself into the labour ward and did the usual urine sample malarkey, initially I was given a private room on the maternity ward in one of their allocated induction rooms as I was with Noah. However after about 10 minutes I was moved straight to labour ward as I was seen as high risk due to my hind waters already being broken, and the fact baby would be four weeks premature. Usually you have to stay on the maternity ward and labour till you're 'established', so I was glad I didn't have to do that and was already on the labour ward which is where you can receive any pain relief. We were placed in room 10 and basically left there for an hour, till my mum had a moan and they realised they'd forgot about me. Another room change later and I finally saw a midwife who explained I'd be monitored - pessary - monitored and then encouraged to walk around. By this point it was nearing 6pm. The pessary this time around wouldn't be a 24 hour one, but a 6 hour as they really wanted to get baby out sooner rather than later. If they could break my remaining waters after the six hours, they would and then hopefully i'd progress. I was quietly confident I would, as I had with Noah and didn't need any further intervention and I just think when in labour whatever works for you - works and the pessaries seemed to work for me.
Monitoring was all very well, and by the time 7pm came I was told to have a good walk around. Kingsmill is a very big hospital, very modern and there is a fair bit to see and do. We grabbed a bite to eat in Costa, which was all feeling so familiar as we did the exact same when I was having Noah just over two years previously. Around 8pm when the shops started closing in the hospital we went for a wander outside, but I could already feel things were happening, I felt crampy and distinctively remember my Mum asking 'Is anything happening yet?' a few times to which I'd just reply 'It basically feels like I've been kicked in the crotch'. And it did. By this point I had walked maybe a mere 300m and really didn't want to walk any more, I wasn't in agony, I just wasn't comfortable and I was much happier sitting down people watching. So we did, till around 10pm when we made our way back to the ward. It was then we met the midwife who would deliver P, Martha, a student midwife and I was her qualifying delivery. An hour or so later I was examined and was 2cm, which made sense as I could feel little waves of discomfort now which seemed to have a pattern. But here is something that I found totally different than I did with Noah, the most painful part of my whole labour was by FAR internal examinations. They intensified any pains I had and frustratingly Martha didn't listen when I'd ask her to stop. That being said, when we got to the six hour period, she managed to break my waters and I was suddenly 4cm but as there was a fair amount of blood in them, I was hooked up to the monitor for the remainder of my labour which was incredibly frustrating.
Stay tuned for part 2 of my birth story on the blog this week, where you can read about little Ps entry to the world and swift move to intensive care .
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